Beto O'Rourke could be the Democrats' best hope for a respectable defeat in 2020 instead of a humiliating one

O'Rourke met with the ex-president at Obama's offices in Washington D.C., on Nov. 16, according to a Tuesday report from The Washington Post.

According to Fox News, O'Rourke, who recently lost a Senate campaign to incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, initially said he would "not be a candidate for president in 2020," but changed his tune last week at a town hall in El Paso, telling reporters that his initial comment was made when winning the Senate race was "100 percent our focus."

Now, O'Rourke said, he and his wife are "thinking through a number of things" and have "made a decision not to rule anything out."

Speaking to his former strategist, David Axelrod, Obama said the Texas politician appears to be running on a platform that he actually believes.

“What I oftentimes am looking for first and foremost is, ‘Do you seem to mean it? Are you in this thing because you have a strong set of convictions that you are willing to risk things for?'” Obama said, noting that O’Rourke struck him as that kind of person.

A former senior adviser to O'Rourke told NBC News recently that many former Obama officials are saying: "If we can be helpful as you think about this, let us know. If you want our perspective on what it's like to run a national campaign, let us know."

And young Democrats don't appear to be pushing O'Rourke, whose House term ends Jan. 3, to the side.

New Hampshire's Young Democrats political group, as well as Iowa Democrats, last month invited O'Rourke to speak in their respective states.